Telecom

About Telecom

Telecom is a lo-fi effect that pushes audio through real codecs and simulated transmission paths instead of a single bit-depth and sample-rate knob. The dropouts, smears and retrains come from actual transmission errors, modeled on lines from a 300-baud Bell modem to a Nokia GSM call, a fax page, a skipping Discman and early web streaming.

Each of the 13 engines picks a period-matched codec on AUTO, but any of the 14 codecs, from LPC-10 and Speak & Spell to SP-1200 and GSM, can ride any line. Corruption targets pitch, gain, spectrum or timing, can be limited to one frequency band, and can lock to DAW tempo. WEATHER drives the line damage from a chaotic attractor, so it never loops.

LOW KEEP leaves the sub clean while the damage works above it, and DROP triggers a dropout on demand, which makes it usable for transitions as well as texture. The CONSTELLATION engine snaps audio to modulation points with near-zero latency and is aimed at drums and bass. There is also a standalone app.